S1 Episode 8: Resilience

Connie Walker questions police about DNA evidence, and learns that after nearly three decades, their seemingly stagnant investigation has become “very active”, as a result of new information brought to light in this podcast.

Episodes

Fifteen-year-old Kerrie Brown disappeared from a house party in Thompson, Manitoba. Her body was found two days later. Host David Ridgen joins Kerrie's friends and family on their search for answers. Subscribe to Someone Knows Something now.

Even though it was supposed to have been destroyed in 1983, the police file documenting the investigation into Cleo’s death still exists and it contains more detail than Christine ever imagined learning about the last days, hours and even minutes of Cleo’s short life.

Christine travels to Pennsylvania for an emotional reunion with her brother, Johnny, who she hasn’t seen since she was a baby. Determined to get more answers about the days and weeks leading up to her sister’s death, Christine finally gets a copy of Cleo’s death certificate. That, and other documents begin to shed light on the truth she’s been seeking for decades.

Digging through archives in Saskatchewan, Connie makes a shocking discovery. As she investigates the controversial Adopt Indian Metis program which Cleo and her siblings were a part of, the man who started the program agrees to speak with her about its controversial origins, and legacy.

Connie’s chance meeting with the father who Cleo never knew is followed by new revelations about the Semaganis children’s biological mother, Lillian. A picture begins to emerge about why her children were taken, and when she joined the fight to stop the adoption of more Indigenous children into white homes.

A brief encounter with someone who knew Cleo perhaps better than anyone else just before her death reveals crucial details. Connecting new facts about her life leads the investigation to a world far from where Cleo died, back to Little Pine First Nation.

As Connie shares some shocking news with Cleo's siblings, the truth about what happened to her remains just out of reach. Police may have answers but can’t share them yet. It's time to visit the one person who's bound to know more.

The search for Cleo leads Connie to investigate a headstone belonging to a 13-year-old girl who died in 1978. The cemetery is more than 20 hours away from Arkansas, where Cleo's family has long believed she was killed.

Connie meets Cleo’s older brother, Johnny, in Pennsylvania, where he was adopted. He’s haunted by the memory of saying goodbye to Cleo and longs to fulfill a promise to find her. A late night internet search reveals he may be close.

Christine gets a tip that helps geographically narrow the search for Cleo, and Connie visits another sister, April, to see what she may remember. Scouring old photos and documents, they stumble on a key reference to Cleo in April’s adoption records.

Connie responds to Christine’s plea for help finding her eldest sister, Cleo. The only proof of Cleo’s existence though is a tiny, undated school photo. A clue soon emerges which will take Christine’s search in unexpected directions.

In the 1970s, Cleo was taken by child welfare workers and adopted in the U.S. Her family, who has been searching for her since, was told she was murdered. Host Connie Walker helps the family unravel the mystery. A CBC News podcast coming March 7th.

Connie Walker questions police about DNA evidence, and learns that after nearly three decades, their seemingly stagnant investigation has become “very active”, as a result of new information brought to light in this podcast.

In this episode, Connie Walker finds the cabbie who people told us they saw with Alberta and her uncle Jack the night after she’s thought to have vanished. While talking to Walker the taxi driver discloses something surprising about his DNA.

A shocking new revelation surfaces about people seeing Alberta in a mysterious black truck after she was thought to have disappeared. The tip propels investigative reporter Connie Walker north, to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Combing through old police notebooks, Walker tries to piece together what happened on the night Alberta vanished. She discovers that even before Alberta’s body was found, one of the people interviewed hinted at a “tragic accident”.